I agree with what you have written. I will add a bit to what you have left open.
Name is just name. Another word for name is concept; the giving of name. So the giving of name to form, creates the conscious experience of that what is discerned and given name. See SN 12.67 and DN 15. Form is any form, as you already mentioned, and includes form derived from the elements, therefore form also includes thoughts and mental images. So a thought is a form, and the naming of that thought as “thought”, is name. Without identifying, there is no arising of namarupa. Without arising of namarupa, there is no arising of suffering.
Great to see someone else with wisdom here! All the best to you.
Rupa (material form) is external objects (i.e. visible forms, sounds, smells, testes, tangibles) and nama (name) is mental objects (according to SA 294 = SN12.19; see p. 187 in Choong Mun-keat’s Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism).
Apparently not, because the sutta talks about external name-and-form. Also, for the wise man, the ignorance and craving from which the body originated has been utterly destroyed. So if namarupa were to mean mind-body, there would be no wise man. Also, the sutta talks about the sense bases, and not the six senses as such. The six sense bases are based upon namarupa (name-and-form).
Through seeing (form) sight (name) is conceived,
through hearing…,
through thinking (form) thought (name) is conceived.
Based upon this conceiving (duality), there is a body that experiences sight (contact). If one conceives of a body as having sight, one is with sight; if one is with sight, one will be in sight; if one is in sight, one will be here or hereafter or in between the two. Ud 1.10.
Warm regards,
Peter
PS., it is also interesting to note that Sujato translates namarupa to name-and-form in SN 12.19, whereas in all other translations from him that I have read, he translates namarupa as mentality-materiality.
This sounds like the external minds & bodies of others; externally.
The 1st translation of “body” above is from the Pali “kaya”. The 2nd translation of “body” above is from “rupa”. What is subject to or has “gone to arising” (“kāyo samudāgato”) is the “kaya” and not the “rupa”. The meaning of “kāyo samudāgato” seems explained in SN 22.5:
And what is the origin of form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness?
Ko ca, bhikkhave, rūpassa samudayo, ko vedanāya samudayo, ko saññāya samudayo, ko saṅkhārānaṁ samudayo, ko viññāṇassa samudayo?
It’s when a mendicant approves, welcomes and keeps clinging.
I don’t see a reason to do so. I don’t know if you understood what I have written in previous posts, but I will try to explain it in even easier terms. All the suttas that talk about liberation, explain that liberation is about not appropriating/ identifying/ conceiving the aggregrates as self. This liberation can be experienced in the here-and-now. The only way to get to that liberation is through understanding namarupa as name-and-form, i.e. a duality is created by trying to identify sense experience.
If one understands name-and-form to be mentality-materiality, there is no liberation possible in the here-and-now. The aggregates themselves would be seen as suffering. Life itself would be seen as suffering, from which death is the only release.
So besides that there are no suttas that point to such an interpretation of DO, even if the suttas were pointing to such an interpretation, this would not be worthwhile to follow IMHO.
I think this is a very good way to understand namarupa using the six senses.
SA298 defines namarupa as form, feeling, perception, activities, consciousness while SN12 .2 defines it as form, feeling, perception, volition, contact, attention. I think the reason SA298 defines namarupa that way is because the author or translator may think namarupa should be a being while we do not find that in SN12. 2. Since I do not see namarupa as a fetus or a being, I choose the definition in SN12. 2. because if namarupa is a being then external namarupa must be an external being and it will conflict with SN12. 19.
From SN12.19, we have:
“this body and external name and form. Contact depends on this duality.”
The body and the external namarupa are the duality that causes the arising of contact. The body here works with the external namarupa for contact to arise, so we can say that this is the physical body that provides the physical senses for the operation. We also know that:
In dependence on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact.
So, this external namarupa is the object of the six sense bases. Therefore, they are external form, sounds, odours, tastes, tactile objects, mental phenomena.
Since we have an external namarupa, we can infer that there is non-external namarupa. Otherwise, the “external” is meaningless. Let’s assume that the internal namarupa is the reflection of the external namarupa in our mind. If this is the case, we can say that the internal namarupa is the internal form, sounds, odours, tastes, tactile objects, mental phenomena in our mind. This internal namarupa could be the namarupa in DO. In fact, what we are experiencing is actually the reflection of the external objects out there. We do not directly see the object. We actually see the reflection of the object in our mind.
To map this internal namarupa with its definition in DO, we can take nama (feeling, perception, intention, contact, attention) as internal mental phenomena, and rupa (earth, water, fire, air and the form derived from them) as internal form, sounds, odours, tastes, tactile objects. This internal rupa is the reflection of the external rupa in our mind, so it is also mental.
However, nama in DO must have intention; therefore, namarupa in DO should be the intentional reflection of the external namarupa. This intention is driven by ignorance; therefore, the namarupa in DO is not simply the reflection of the external namarupa, but it is the intentional reflection of the external namarupa. This is important because we can also have the reflection of external namarupa without intention. In this case, this reflection is not namarupa of DO. The cessation of namarupa in DO is the cessation of the intentional reflection of external namarupa, not the unintentional reflection. This shows that we can still experience the world even if the namarupa in DO ceased.
My previous understanding of namarupa in DO is quite close to this, but it is not very clear. I was thinking namarupa is the connection between nama and rupa or between the mind and its objects. The connection obviously must be done through the six senses, and that is this reflection of the external namarupa. We can also see this connection in SN12.19 as the contact that depends on the body and the external namarupa.
I think this reflection of external namarupa in DO does not happen all at once for all the senses, but it is gradual filling as I previously explained in my example
This filling will trigger the arising of all the appropriate senses for the experience, and they will eventually be reflected in the mind. Therefore, in DO we can see the six senses after namarupa. These six senses in DO are the type of the reflection of the external namarupa. Therefore, they are not the physical six sense bases. They arise depending on the intentional reflection of appropriate types of external namarupa. Without that, they will not arise.
To me, I think this is another very good way to understand namarupa. Without understanding namarupa, we will not be able to understand DO.
My understanding is limited, so I may have some mistakes that I cannot see. Feel free to validate my understanding. I am happy to correct them. Of course, this is just my own limited view.
No. I never referred to any “duality”. Instead, I quoted the definition of namarupa from SN 12.2; where it seems to refer to a mind & body polluted by ignorance.
Basically what you’re saying means that mentality-materiality in DO doesn’t refer to that what constitutes a human being as a whole, but that it refers to a duality arisen out of ignorance. Which is what I explained, but in different words. For how could an Arahant be if he isn’t born?
Sure an Arahant has feelings, but an arahant wouldn’t be grasping the feeling, and if one is not grasping a feeling, there is no feeling to be called “feeling”.
If you still have doubt, I can recommend studying MN 140.
This is my last message in this discourse, as I have said everything that is needed to be said. All the best to you, goodbye.
PS. If you keep editing your messages to the point where you completely delete your original message, and replace it with a response to a response upon your original message, you’re not only disturbing the discourse, but you’re also deceiving others and yourself. Unless you refrain from these post-reply changes, I will not engage in future discussions with you.
PPS. Maybe you can explain to those who are interested, what this mind-body polluted by ignorance might be, if there is a mind-body not polluted by ignorance, without referring to a duality.
SC saves your drafts and I thought I was making a new post but it was the former post I was writing on. In summary, I accidently deleted the content of the previous post.
Its indicated in the suttas (such as MN 9). Ignorance includes asava, such as sensual impulse. When the sensual impulse arises, the nama gives inappropriate attention to the sensual impulse and the rupa (body) is aroused by the sensual impulse. This is nama-rupa polluted by ignorance.
Incorrect, please see MN 140; the internal-external distinction is irrelevant. The only relevant thing to realize is that a duality arises when form is perceived as nama. This perceiving is the duality through which a body perceives sound. Whether kaya refers to a physical body, or body of aggregates, is also irrelevant for this understanding. Whether form is called “sound waves”, “hearing”, or “heard” is also irrelevant. The only important thing to realize is that the corresponding nama is “sound”; that what is perceived. This applies to all the six sense bases. Hence the suttas about DO talk about “bases” and not the senses as such, because based upon the aformentioned duality, the six sense bases arise. So the illusion of the self is created by the conceiving that one heard a sound. Instead one needs to let the heard be the heard. The teaching of the Buddha is profoundly simple.
Edit; please note that in previous posts I used the term “conceived” where I had better used the term “perceived”.
I may not fully understand what you mean, but it seems to me that you are talking about the perception in nama. Nama in DO is defined as feeling, perception, intention, contact, attention. Therefore, it has more than just perception. The external namarupa and the body (or the six senses) in SN12.19 is the duality that means they are a pair, duplicity or the other-side of each other. If so, they are reflecting each other. Of course, the reflection can be influenced by other factors such as ignorance that gives nama in DO extra factors such as intention, attention.
I am also not sure what you mean “form is perceived as nama?” I think you may mean form is mentally perceived, because I could understand you mean that form is perceived as “feeling, perception, intention, contact, attention” which does not make very much sense to me.
It seems to me that you are concerned about the illusion of self that creates from the experience. Of course, the self comes and goes. It is what it is. However, this is not what we are talking about here. We are exploring what external namarupa is and its relationship to the namarupa in DO.
You don’t understand what I mean, because you don’t really investigate what I have written. My post was specifically tailored to what you are exploring in your previous post. I cannot help you further. All the best to you. Goodbye.
No. They are dependently arisen in or through contact, which conditions consciousness. It is highly likely that I would translate phassa as media, drawing upon Zielinski’s concept of it as something that closes, or conjoins, a gap: “Media are spaces of action for constructed attempts to connect what is separated.”
